CHAPTER XVII. A VOICE AT DAWN

Word was passed about that we were going to surprise the militia at Bridport at dawn. We were told to keep quiet on the march, after passing Charmouth, as the night was so still that we should be heard far off. We did not know how near the Bridport outposts might come to us under cover of the night. "You come with us, Martin," said Lord Grey: "Take a horse. If we win Bridport you'll have to gallop back with the news." I was made a little nervous by the thought of going into battle so soon; but gulping down my fears I mounted a marsh-mare which stood near the inn door. I hoped sincerely that no militia bullet would find any part of either of us. Then the drums began to play us out of the town with their morning roll. A fife whined out, going down to our marrows with its shrillness. Lights showed at the windows. We saw dark heads framed in yellow patches. People called to us. In the door of the great inn stood Monmouth; his face seemed very white in the glare of the torches. He raised his hand to us as we passed him. The last thing I noticed of the town, for I rode in the rear with Lord Grey, were the ranks passing the lamp on the town hall. They came up to it in waves, their cloaks showing in glimmer for an instant. Then they passed on into the night, sliding forwards slowly with a steady roll, like the moving of waves to the shore.

We were a long time riding; so long that the dawn was on us by the time we were within shot of the enemy. I don't remember very much about the ride, except that it was unreal, very unreal; for the mists came down, blotting the world from us, so that we rode in a swirl of cold grey, amid a noise of dropping. When we got to the top of the long hill after Chideock I was bidden halt at a cross-roads, with a waggon full of ammunition, while the force moved on to the attack. The hills were showing up clearly above the mist; but the valley lay like a sea, a great grey formless level, like some world of the ghosts. The troops passed down in it, moving pretty briskly, lest the mist should lift before they were in position. Most of them knew the country, so that they could well walk confidently; but their quickness had something nervous in it, as though they were ill at ease. Very soon they were out of sight, out of hearing, swallowed up in the fog.

I waited a long time (as it seemed) up there at the cross-roads. After a long wait I rode a little down the hill, from sheer anxiety. I pulled up in a bank of cloud, through which I could see dimly, in the growing light, for about a dozen yards. I was leaning well forward, listening for the sound of shooting, when something made me look down. Someone was standing at my side, slipping something into my pocket. It gave me a start. I clutched at the person. It was the old lame puppet-man who had been at Lyme the day before. "Latter for ee," he said in a whisper. "Read en, unless you'm a fool." His hand pressed lightly on my bridle hand for an instant; then he ducked sideways swiftly into the wilderness of ferny gorse at the side of the road, where I could not hope to follow him, even if the mist had not hidden him. Something in the voice, something in the lightness of the touch startled me into the knowledge. As he ducked, it came over me that this old man was Aurelia disguised, come to spy upon us, but bent, also, on giving me a warning, some little kind word of advice, at the beginning of my lord's war. I ought to have recognized her before. I had been blind. She had been under my eyes the whole day, yet I had never once suspected, no one, of all that army, had suspected. She had been disguised by a master-hand. She had played her part like a great actress. It was terrible to think of the risk she was running. One man's suspicion, in a time of war, would have been enough to give her to a horrible death. I tried to follow her into the jungle into which she had vanished; but my horse would not face the furze. I tried hard to see her, but it was no use; the tangle was too thick; she had gone. I called out to her softly; but I got no answer; only, at some little distance away, I heard a twig snap under a passer's foot.

In a momentary clearing of the mist, I pulled out my letter. It was written in a fine, firm hand, with signature. It was a short, purposeful letter, which kept sharply to the point. It only contained two lines. "Your Duke's cause is hopeless. He has no possible chance. Take the Axminster road to safety." That was the whole letter. It gave me a feeling of uneasiness; but it did not tempt me to desert. I thought that if I deserted I might very well be tortured into betraying all that I knew of the Duke's plans, while I doubted very much whether the Duke's body-servant would find mercy from the merciless, frightened King. What was I to do, even if I escaped from the King's party? I was too young for any employment worthy of my station in life. I had neither the strength nor the skill for manual labour. Who would employ a boy of my age on a farm or in a factory? All that I could hope would be to get away to sea, to a life which I had already found loathsome. As to going back to my uncle's house, I doubt if I would have gone, even had I had the certainty of getting to it safely. When a boy has once taken to an adventurous life, nothing but very ill health will drive him back to home-life. Yet there was the thought of Aurelia. Somehow the thought of her was a stronger temptation than any fear of defeat. I would have liked to have seen that old enemy of mine again.

I was thinking over the letter, wondering what would come to the Duke's cause, when the valley below me began to ring with firing. A heavy fire had begun there. It thundered in a long roll, which died down, momentarily, into single sputterings through which one could hear shouting. About twenty minutes after the beginning of the shots, when all the party on the hill-top were edging nearer to the battle, taking a few steps at a time, on tenter-hooks to be engaged, we heard a great gallop of horses' hoofs coming to us at full tilt. At first we were scared by this, for the noise was tremendous, too great, we inexperienced soldiers thought, to be caused by our little troop of cavalry. We thought that it was the Bridport militia charging down on us, after destroying our friends. The mist by this time was all blowing clear, though wisps of it clung along the hedgerows in unreal rolling folds. The day above was breaking in the sultry blue summer dimness. We could see, I suppose, for a quarter of a mile, straight down the road.

We had swung round, facing towards Lyme, when the noise of the hoofs first came to us. When the turn of the road showed us a squad of cavalry coming to us at the charge, led by half a dozen riderless horses, we waited for no more. We spurred up our nags in a panic, till we, too, were going full tilt for Lyme, shouting out as we went any nonsense which came to our heads. We were in a panic fear; I believe that the horses in some way felt it too. We galloped back to Chideock as though we were chased by witches, while the gun-firing at Bridport steadily grew less, till at last it stopped altogether. At Chideock, some of the cavalry came up with us. They were our own men, our own troop of horse, not an enemy after all. The riderless horses were a few of the militia charges which had been seized from a cavalry outpost to the west of the town. We had bolted from our own crazy terror. But we were not the only fleers. Our cavalry had bolted first, at the first volley outside the town. It is unjust to say that they were afraid. Lord Grey was not a coward; our men had stout hearts enough; but they had not reckoned on the horses. The first discharge of guns scared the horses almost frantic. They swung about out of action in a couple of seconds. Another volley made them all bolt. It was when they were bolting that the men began to grow alarmed. Fear is a contagious thing; it seems to pass from spirit to spirit, like a flame along a powder train, till perhaps a whole army feels it. Our horsemen pulled up among us in Chideock in as bad a scare as you ever saw; it was twenty minutes before they dared walk back to find out what had happened to the foot at Bridport, after their retreat.

Our foot came back very angry with the horse. They had fired away a lot of powder to very little purpose, before orders reached them, bidding them retire. They had not wished to retire; but at last they had done so sullenly, vowing to duck Lord Grey for deserting them. We had taken about a dozen horses without harness, instead of the two hundred equipped chargers which we had promised ourselves.

We had killed a few of the militia, so everybody said; but in the confusion of the powder-smoke who could say how many? They were certain that none of our own men had been killed; but in a force so newly raised, who could say for certain which were our own men? As a matter of fact several of our men had been taken by the royalists, which is as much as to say that they had been killed. Altogether the affair had been a hopeless failure from the very beginning. The foot had learned to despise the horse. The horses had learned to be afraid of gun-fire. The cavalrymen had learned to despise Lord Grey. The militia had learned to despise us. The only valuable lesson that our men had learned was that a battle was not so terrible a thing. You knelt down, fired your gun, shouted, borrowed your neighbour's drinking bottle, took a long swig, then fired again, with more shouting, till somebody clapped you on the shoulder with orders to come away. But this lesson, precious as it was did not console our men for their beating. They were cross with the long night-march as well as with Lord Grey's desertion. We dragged our way back to Lyme very slowly, losing a good fifty of our number by desertion. They slipped away home, after falling out of the ranks to rest. They had had enough of fighting for the Duke; they were off home. The officers were strict at first, trying to stop these desertions; but the temper of the men was so bad that at last they gave it up, hoping that some at least would stay. That was another evil consequence of fighting for the crown with an undisciplined mob; they could sustain defeat as ill as they could use victory. We did not trail into Lyme until after noon; for we marched like snails, fearing that the militia would follow us. When we got into camp, the men flung their arms from them, careless of the officer's orders. All that they wanted was sleep (we had eaten a late breakfast at Charmouth), they were not going to do any more soldier's foolery of drill, or sentry-go. As for Lord Grey, whom everybody called a coward, the Duke could not cashier him, because he was the best officer remaining to us. Poor Fletcher, who might have made something of our cavalry, was by this time far away at sea. The other officers had shown their incapacity that morning. For my own part, I chose out a snug billet on a hearthrug in the George Inn, where I slept very soundly for several hours. While I slept, the Duke held a melancholy council to debate what could be done.

They say that he ought to have marched that morning to Exeter, where Lord Albemarle's militia (all of them ripe for rebellion) would have joined him.

Exeter or Bristol, one or the other, would have been a fine plume in his cap, a strong, fortified town, full of arms, where he could have established himself firmly. I do not know why he decided against marching to Exeter. He may have had bad reports of troops being on the road waiting for him; or he may have thought that his friends (who were plentiful on the Bristol road) would rally to him as soon as he appeared. He was deceived by those protesting gentry, his friends, who had welcomed him so warmly only a few months before. He thought that all the countryside was ready to join him. He had been deceived, as perhaps a cleverer man would have been deceived, by the warmth of his welcome on his earlier visit. An Englishman is always polite to a Duke when he meets him in a friendly gathering. But when the Duke says, "Lend me all your ready money, together with your horses, or rather give them to me, since I am the King," his politeness leaves him; he gets away to London to warn the police as fast as his horse will take him. Thus it was with the Duke's friends scattered about along the main-road from Lyme to Bristol.

I know not who persuaded the Duke to march; probably it was Grey; it may have been Venner; it may have been a momentary mad resolution caused by a glass of wine. They say that he was solemn about it, as though he expected to fail. Perhaps he would have gone back to Holland if the ship had been still in the harbour, but of course she had gone away. He would not go in La Reina; for she was sluggish from barnacles, having been long un-careened. The Channel at this time was full of ships looking for him; how he escaped them when he sailed from Holland I cannot think. He hesitated for a long time, poor man, before deciding; no man could have acted more like a Stuart, at such a time. When the decision was made he gave word to start early on the following morning. But this I did not know till one A.M, when Lord Grey routed me out from my berth on the hearth-rug, so that I might go from house to house, calling up our officers.

I suppose that all our officers were out of bed by two o'clock, yet it took them eight hours to get their men together, into some sort of order. We were hardly ready for the road at ten A.M. when the drums beat up to play us out of the town. As I was the Duke's servant, I was allowed to ride by my master; I daresay people thought that I was the young Prince. We marched up the hill gaily, with a multitude flocking all about us, but there were many of that crowd who looked doubtfully at my master's sad face, thinking that he looked over-melancholy for a conquering king.

We marched out of Lyme into a valley, through a sort of suburb called Uplyme. After that we marched steadily up hill, a long climb of two miles, having a great view of the countryside on our left hand. Our right was shut from us by a wooded hill. It was a warm, sunny June day: the grass just ripe for hay harvest; the country at its best; everything at its full flower, so that you wondered at the world's abundance. We sent out scouts, when we were about a mile from Lyme; but when we were at the top of the hill we could see for ourselves, without putting scouts abroad. We could see horsemen on the high ground away to the left, two or three hundred of them. Besides these there were some companies of foot drawn up in good order in the fields outside Axminster, at some distance from the town. When this army caught sight of us, it began to file off towards the town, as though to dispute it with us, so our advanced guard pushed on to drive them out of it. The sight of so many men in order, was a very moving one. To see them advance their colours, to see the light on the shifting steel, to hear the low beating hum of the feet was stirring to the heart. Word ran along the line that there was going to be a battle. Our foot left the road, so as to spread out into line in the open, where they could take up positions behind hedges. I was sent back to the rear at this instant, to order up the ammunition waggons, so that I missed some part of the operations; but I shall never forget how confidently our men spread out; they marched as though they were going into the fields for partridges. The drums began again, to hearten them, but there was no need for drums in that company; they began to sing of their own accord, making a noise which drowned the drums altogether. I gave my orders to the ammunition waggons, which were blocked in a jumble of sightseers, camp-followers, etc., etc., so that they could hardly move. The drivers got me to charge my horse through the mob to make a path, which I did, with a good deal of pain to myself, for the people thus thrust aside struck at me. The drivers struck out at them in return; we had a little fight of our own, while Axminster was being won.



CHAPTER XVIII. I SPEAK WITH AURELIA

The next thing which I remember was coming out of the mob with the waggons just behind me, going at a smart pace to a position on the army's right. The road was pretty full of all sorts of people; but as we shouted for them to clear the way, they made a lane for us. I saw the Duke's little clump of staff-officers on a pitch of rising ground, but there was no firing; only a noise of many voices singing. Just as we were about to turn off the road into the fields behind our right wing, I saw the little old lame puppet-man sitting on a donkey by the ditch at the side of the road. I shouted to the drivers to pass on, which they did, at full tilt, while I drew rein by the old man's side. "Aurelia," I said, "this is no place for you. Do get away from here before they find you out."

"Why," she said, very calmly, in the broad burring man's voice which she imitated so exactly. "I be come 'ere to find you out. You'm going to your death, boy. You get out of this 'ere army afore you're took. I tell ee thy Duke be a doomed man. Look at en's face. Why, boy, there be eleven thousand soldiers a-marching to put er down. You've only a got a quarter of that lot. Come out of en, boy. Do-an't ee be led wrong." I was touched by her kind thought for me; she was risking her life for me for the second time, but in the hurry of the moment I could not put words together to thank her.

"Aurelia," I said, "I can't talk to you now. Only get out of this. Don't stay here. I'm all right."

"No, Martin," she said, in her ordinary voice, "you're not all right. Come out of this. Slip away tonight to Newenham Abbey. It be over there, not more than a couple of miles. Oh, come, come. I can't bear to see you going away to certain death. I KNOW that this force cannot win."

"Yes, Aurelia," I answered. "But I'm not going to be a hang-back for all that. I'm not going to be a coward. You risk a horrible death, only to tell me not to do the same. You wouldn't give up a cause you believed in, merely because it was dangerous. I'll stick by my master, Aurelia. Don't try to tempt me."

She would have said more; she would perhaps have persuaded me from my heroics, had not the guns begun firing. That broke the spell with a vengeance; nothing could be done after that. I shook up my horse, hardly pausing to say "God bless you." In another minute she was out of sight, while I was cantering off to the extreme right wing with the Duke's orders to his officers to cut in on the road to Chard. As I rode along, behind the scattered line of our men, I could see the rolls of smoke from the firing on the left. The men on the right were not firing, but being raw troops they were edging little by little towards the firing, in which I do not doubt they longed to be, for the sake of the noise. They say now that the Duke threw away this battle at Axminster. He could have cut Albemarle's troops to pieces had he chosen to do so. They made a pretty bold front till we were within gunfire of them, when they all scattered off to the town pell-mell. While they were in the town, we could have cut them off from the Chard road, which would have penned them in while we worked round to seize the bridges. After that, one brisk assault would have made the whole batch of them surrender. Some of our officers galloped from our right wing (where I was) to see how the land lay, before leading off their men as I had brought them word. A few of them fired their pistols, when they came to the road, which was enough to make the right wing double forward to support them without orders. In a minute about a thousand of us were running fast after our officers, while the Duke's aides charged down to stop us. He had decided not to fight, probably thinking that it would do his cause no good by killing a lot of his subjects so early in his reign. We know now that had he made one bold attack that morning, the whole of Albemarle's force, with the exception of a few officers, would have declared for him. In other words we should have added to our army about a thousand drilled armed men who knew the country through which we were to pass. By not fighting, we discouraged our own army, who grumbled bitterly when they found their second battle as ineffectual as the fight at Bridport.

I remember next that I saw the whole of Albemarle's troops flying for their lives along the Chard road, flinging away their weapons as they ran. They had the start of us; but a resolute captain could have brought them to a stand, by pushing forward his cavalry. However "a bridge of gold to a flying foe" is a good saying. We let them go. When our cavalry advanced (to keep them on the move, not to fight with them) they passed the time in collecting what the militia had flung away; about four thousand pounds' worth of soldiers' stores, chiefly uniforms. I went forward with the horse on that occasion. I picked up altogether about a dozen muskets, which I gave to some of our men who were armed only with clubs. Then I rode back to report myself ready for service to my master, who was getting ready for camp, thinking that his men had done enough for one day.

It was a sad waste of time. A rough camp was formed. We went no further for that time. About half a precious day was wasted, which might have brought us nearly to Taunton under a resolute man, sworn to conquer. Some of our men went out to forage, which they did pretty roughly. It was theft with violence, coloured over by some little touch of law. The farmers who were unpopular thereabouts had their cattle driven off; their ricks carted off; their horses stolen; their hen-roosts destroyed. We were like an army of locusts, eating up everything as we passed. Our promises to pay, when the King came to his own, were really additional insult; for the people robbed knew only too well how Stuart kings kept their promises. One strange thing I saw that night. The men who were cooking their newly stolen beef at the camp-fires kept crying out for camp-kettles in which to boil the joints. We had no camp-kettles; but an old man came forward to the Duke's quarters to ask if he might show the men how to cook their meat without kettles. The Duke at once commanded him to show us how this might be done. Like most useful inventions, it was very simple. It was one of those things which are forgotten as life becomes civilised, but for want of which one may perish when one returns to barbarity, as in war. The old man began by placing stout poles in tripods over the camp-fires, lashing them firmly at the top with faggot-binders. Then he took the hide of one of the slaughtered cattle, gathering it up at the corners, so as to form a sort of bag. He cut some long narrow strips from the hide of the legs, with which to tie the four corners together. Then he lashed the four corners to the tripod, so that the bag hung over the fire.

"There," he said. "There is your kettle. Now put water into en. Boil thy victuals in er. That be a soldier's camp-kettle. You can carry your kettle on your beef till you be ready for en."

Indeed, it proved to be a very good kind of a kettle after one got used to the nastiness of it, though the smell of burning hair from the kettles was disgusting. To this day, I have only to singe a few hairs in a candle to bring back to my mind's eye that first day in camp at Axminster, the hill, the valley ringed in by combes, the noise of the horses, the sputtering of the fires of green wood, the many men passing about aimlessly, wondering at the ease of a soldier's life after the labour of spring ploughing. It was a wonderful sight, that first camp of ours; but the men for the most part grumbled at not fighting; they wanted to be pushing on, to seize the city of Bristol, instead of camping there. How did they know, they said, that the weather would keep fine? How were we to march with all our ten baggage waggons if the weather turned wet, so that the roads became muddy? The roads in those parts became deep quagmires in rainy weather. A light farmer's market cart might go in up to the axles after a day's steady rain. To march through such roads would break the men's hearts quicker than any quantity of fighting, however disastrous. Thus they grumbled about the camp-fires, while I bustled over the Duke's dinner, in the intervals of running errands for the colonel.

That evening, after the summer dusk had come, but before the army had settled to sleep, I heard an old man, one of our cavalrymen, talking to another trooper. "Ah," he said, "I was fighting in the old wars under Oliver. I've seen wars enough. You mark my words, boy, this army won't do much. We've not got enough men, for one thing. We could have had fourteen thousand or more if he'd thought to bring muskets for en. We've not got cavalry, that's another thing. When us do come face to face with all the King's men us shall be sore put to it for want of a few trusty horses. Horsemen be the very backbones of armies in the field. Then, boy, we not got any captains, that's worst of all. The Duke's no captain. If he'd been a captain her'd have fought this morning. Them others aren't captains neither, none of them. Besides, what are they doing sitting down in camp like this when we ought to be marching? Us ought to be marching. Marching all night, never setting down once, marching in two armies, one to Exeter, one to Bristol. Us'd 'ave the two towns by late tomorrow night if us was under old Oliver. It'll take us a week to get to Bristol at this rate. By that time it will be full of troops, as well as secured by ships. As for us, by that time we shall have troops all round us, not to speak of club-men."

"Ah," said the younger man. "What be club-men, gaffer?"

"You'll know soon enough what club-men are," the old man answered, "if there's any more of this drunken dirty robbery I saw this afternoon. Those thieves who stole the farmer's cattle would have been shot in Oliver's time. They'd have cast lots on a drum in sight of all on us, drawn up. The men who got the low numbers would have been shot. The captains would have pistolled them where they stood. If this robbing goes on, all the farmers will club together to defend themselves, making a sort of second army for us to fight against. That is what club-men means. It's not a nice thing to fight in a country where there are club-men all round you. No, boy. So what with all this, boy, I be going to creep out of this 'ere army. I do-an't like the look of things, nor I do-an't like the way things are done. If you take a old man's advice you'll come too."

"Noa," said the honest oaf, "I be agoin' to vight. I be a-goin' to London town to be a girt sol-dier."

"Ah," said the old man, shortly, "you be a vule, Tummas. Wish ee good day, maister." Then the old man turned sharply on his heel to leave the camp, which he did easily enough, for he knew several of the sentries. Even if he had not known them, it would have made little difference, because our sentries were so lax that the camp was always swarming with strangers. Women came to see their husbands or sweethearts. Boys came out of love of mischief. Men came out of curiosity, or out of some wish to see things before they decided which side to take. Our captains were never sure at night how many of their men would turn up at muster the next morning.

After the old man had deserted, I sat down on the high ground above the camp, in the earthen battery where our four little guns were mounted. I was oppressed with a sad feeling that we were all marching to death. The old man's words, "we shall have troops all round us," rang in my head, till I could have cried. My mind was full of terrible imaginings. I saw our army penned up in a little narrow valley where the roads were quagmires, so that our guns were stuck in the mud, our horses up to their knees, our men floundering. On the hills all round us I saw the King's armies, fifty thousand strong, marching to music under the colours, firing, then wheeling, forming with a glint of pikes, bringing up guns at a gallop, shooting us down, while we in the mud tried to form. I knew that the end of it all would be a little clump of men round the Duke, gathered together on a hillock, holding out to the last. The men would be dropping as the shot struck them. The wounded would waver, letting their pike-points drop. Then' there would come a whirling of cavalry, horses' eyes in the smoke, bright iron horse-shoes gleaming, swords crashing down on us, an eddy of battle which would end in a hush as the last of us died. I saw all these pictures in my brain, as clearly as one sees in a dream. You must not wonder that I looked over the misty fields towards Newenham Abbey with a sort of longing to be there, well out of all the war. It was only a mile from me. I could slip away so easily. I was not bound to stay where I was, to share in the misery caused by my leader's want of skill. Then I remembered how my father had believed in the right of the Duke's cause. He would have counselled me to stay, I thought. It seemed to me, in the dusk of the night, that my father was by me, urging me to stay. The thought was very blessed; it cleared away all my troubles as though they had not been. I decided to look no more towards Newenham; but to go on by the Duke's side to whatever fortune the wars might bring us. Somehow, the feeling that my father was by me, made me sure that we were marching to victory. I went to my quarters comforted, sure of sleeping contentedly.

Like the rest of us, I had to sleep in the open, without any more shelter than a horse-cloth. Even the Duke was without a tent that night. He slept in camp with us, to set an example to his men, though he might well have gone to some house in the town. I liked the notion of sleeping out in the open. In fine warm summer weather, when the dew is not too heavy, it is pleasant, until a little before the dawn, when one feels uneasy, for some reason, as though an enemy were coming. Perhaps our savage ancestors, the earliest ancient Britons, who lived in hill-camps, high up, with their cattle round them, expected the attacks of their enemies always at a little before the dawn; so that, in time, the entire race learned to be wakeful then, lest the enemy should catch the slumberers, with flint-axe heads in the skull. It may be that to this day we feel the fear felt by so many generations of our ancestors. On this first night in camp, I found that many of the men were sleeping uneasily, for they did not know the secret of sleeping in the open. They did not know that to sleep comfortably in the open one must dig a little hole in the ground, about as big as a porridge bowl, to receive one's hipbone. If you do this, you sleep at ease, feeling nothing of the hardness of the bed. If you fail to do it, you wake all bruised, after a wretched night's tumbling; you ache all the next day.

After grubbing up a hollow with my knife, I swathed myself in my blanket with a saddle for pillow. I watched the stars for a while, as they drifted slowly over me. The horses stamped, shaking their picket-ropes. The sentries walked their rounds, or came to the camp-fires to call their reliefs. The night was full of strange noises. The presence of so many sleeping men was strange. It was very beautiful, very solemn. It gave one a kind of awe to think that thus so many famous armies had slept before the battles of the world, before Pharsalia, before Chalons, before Hastings. Presently the murmuring became so slight that I fell asleep, forgetting everything, only turning uneasily from time to time, to keep the cool night wind from blowing on my cheeks so as to wake me.

It must have been two in the morning when I was wakened by some armed men, evidently our sentries, who rolled me over without ceremony.

"Wake up, young master," they said, grinning. "You'm wanted. You be to get up to go a errand. You be a soldier now. You does your sleeping in peace-times when you be a soldier," I sat up blinking my eyes, in the early light, thinking how nice t'other forty winks would be.

"Heigho," I yawned. "All right. I'm awake. What is it? What's the matter?"

"Lord Grey be a wanting you, young master," said one of the men. "Down there, where them horses be in the road." I picked myself up at that, wishing for a basin of water into which I might shove my head.

"Yes, yes," I said. "Thank you. I'll go down." I left my blanket where it was, as I expected to be back in a few minutes. I walked down hill out of the camp to the road where the horses stood; there were four horses, two of them mounted. The mounted men were regular country bumpkins, with green sprays in their hats, like the rest of our men; but their horses were pretty good, much better than most of those we had. One of them was a stocky old cob, which was no doubt to be mine. The other was a beast with handsome harness for Lord Grey. "Alas," I thought. "No more sleep for me. I've got to ride. I wonder where we are going." The men touched their hats to me; for as I was in the Duke's retinue I was much respected. Some of them no doubt thought I was a princeling or little lord.

"Where are we going?" I asked the troopers.

"Going scouting out towards Colyton yonder, sir," said one of them. "Us be to pick up his Lordship in the town."



CHAPTER XIX. I MEET THE CLUB MEN

I wondered when I was to get breakfast; but I knew Lord Grey well enough to know that he was not a man to go willingly without food for more than a few hours at a time. Breakfast I should have presently, nor would it be skin-boiled beef, smelling of singed hair. So I mounted my cob with a good will. The first trooper rode by my side, the other waited for a moment to examine the feet of Lord Grey's charger. He trotted after us, leading the riderless horse, some fifty yards behind us. We trotted smartly through Axminster, where we set the dogs barking. People sprang from their beds when they heard us, fearing that we were an army coming to fight. We cantered out of the town over the river, heading towards a hilly country, which had few houses upon it. I looked back after leaving Axminster, to see if Lord Grey wanted me. He had mounted his horse somewhere in the town; but he was now a couple of hundred yards behind us, riding' with a third man, whom I judged to be Colonel Foukes, by his broad white regimental scarf. After we had gone a few miles, we came to a cross-roads where my guide bade me halt to wait for orders. The others had pulled up, too. I could see Lord Grey examining a map, while his horse sidled about across the road. The trooper who had been riding with him, joined us after a while, telling us to take the road to our right, which would take us, he said, towards Taunton. We were to keep our eyes skinned, he said, for any sign of armed men coming on the high-road from Honiton, so as to threaten our left flank. The gentlemen were going to scout towards the sea. At eight o'clock, if we had seen no trace of any armed force coming, we were to make for Chard, where we should find the Duke's army. We were to examine the roads for any signs of troops having passed recently towards Taunton. We were to enquire of the country people, if troops were abroad in that countryside, what troops they might be, how led, how equipped, etc. If we came across any men anxious to join the Duke we were to send them on to Chard or Ilminster, on the easterly road to Taunton. We were to ride without our green boughs, he said; so before starting on our road we flung them into the ditches. Lord Grey waved his hand to us, as he turned away with his friend. We took off our hats in reply, hardly in a soldierly salute; then we set off at a walk along the Taunton road. It is a lonely road leading up to the hills, a straight Roman road, better than any roads laid in England at that time; but a road which strikes horror into one, the country through which it runs is so bleak.

By about six o'clock (according to one of the troopers, who judged by the height of the sun) we were in a clump of firs high up on a hill, looking over a vast piece of eastern Devon. We had scouted pretty closely all round Honiton, examining the country people, without hearing of any troops. We were now looking out for some gleam upon a road, some rising of dust over a hedge, some scattering of birds even, any sign of men advancing, which might be examined more closely. The morning was bright; but the valleys had mist upon them, which would soon turn to the quivering blue June heat-haze. The land lay below us, spread out in huge folds; the fields, all different colours, looked like the counties on a map; we could see the sea, we could see the gleam of a little river. We could see Axminster far to the east of us; but the marching army was out of sight, somewhere on the Chard high-road. After scanning pretty well all around us, I caught sight of moving figures on the top of one of the combes to south of us. We all looked hard at the place, trying to make out more of them. They were nearly a mile from us. They seemed to be standing there as sentries. At first we thought that they must be people with Lord Grey; but as we could see no horses we decided that they could not be. One of the men said that as far as he'd heard tell like, the combe on which they stood was what they call a camp, where soldiers lived in the old time. He didn't know much more about it; but he said that he thought we ought to examine it, like, before riding on to some inn where we could breakfast.

The other man seemed to think so, too; but when we came to talk over the best way of doing our espials, we were puzzled. We should be seen at once if we went to them directly. We might be suspected if we approached them on horseback. If the men went, they might be detained, because, for all that we knew, the combe might be full of militia. So I said I had better go, since no one would suspect a boy. To this the men raised a good many objections, looking at each other suspiciously, plainly asking questions with their raised eyebrows. I thought at the time that they were afraid of sending me into a possible danger, because I was a servant attached to the Duke's person. However, when I said that I would go on foot, taking all precautions, they agreed grudgingly to let me go.

I crept along towards this combe on foot, as though I were going bird's nesting. I beat along by the hedges, keeping out of sight behind them, till I was actually on the combe's north slope, climbing up to the old earthwork on the top. I took care to climb the slope at a place where there was no sentry, which was, of course, not only the steepest bit of the hill but covered with gorse clumps, through which I could scarcely thrust my way. Up towards the top the gorse was less plentiful; there were immense foxgloves, ferns, little marshy tufts where rushes grew, little spots of wet bright green moss. Yellow-hammers drawled their pretty tripping notes to me, not starting away, even when I passed close to them. All the beauty of June was on the earth that day; the beauty of everything in that intense blue haze was wonderful.

The top of the combe was very steep, steeper than any of the ascent, because it had been built up like an outer wall by the savages who once lived there with their cattle. I could see just the bare steep wall of the rampart standing up in a dull green line of short-grassed turf against the sky, now burning with the intense blue of summer. One hard quick scramble, with my fingernails dug into the ground, brought my head to the top of the rampart, beyond which I could see nothing but great ferns, a forest of great ferns, already four or five feet high, stretching away below, into the cup of the camp or citadel. I did not dare to stand up, lest I should be seen. I burrowed my way among the ferns over the wall into the hollow, worming my way towards the edge of the fern clump so that I could see. In a minute, I was gazing through the fern-stems into the camp itself; it was a curious sight.

About fifty people (some of them women) were sitting about a hollow in the ground, which I guessed to be a sort of smokeless fireplace or earth-oven. Everywhere else, all over the hollow of the camp, which must have been a full three hundred yards across, were various kinds of farm-stock, mostly cattle, though there were many picketed horses, too. At first I thought that I had climbed into a camp of gipsies, which gave me a scare; for gipsies then were a wild lot, whom wise folk avoided. Then, as I glanced about, I saw a sentry standing not thirty yards from me, but well above me, on the rampart top. He was no gipsy he was an ordinary farmer's lad, with the walk of a ploughman. His sleeves, which were rolled back, showed me a sun-burnt pair of arms, such as no gipsy ever had. What puzzled me about him was his heavy double-barrelled pistol, which he carried in his right hand, with something of a military cock, yet as though awed by it. He was not over sure of that same pistol. I could see that he confounded it in some way with art-magic.

Then I remembered what the old soldier had said the night before about club men. This camp must be a camp of club men, I thought. They had come there to protect their stock from the rapine of our vile pillagers, who had spread such terror amongst the farmers the day before. Perched up on the combe, with sentries always on the look-out, they could see the Duke's raiders long before they came within gunshot. If an armed force had tried to rush the camp, after learning that the beasts were shut up within it (which, by the way, no man could possibly suspect until he saw them from the rampart top), the few defenders clubbed together there could have kept them out without difficulty; for there was only one narrow entrance to the camp, so constructed that any one entering by it could be shot at from three sides, if not from all four. I looked about me carefully from my hiding-place, till I decided that I could get a better view from another part of the fern clump. I began to wriggle through the thick, sweet-scented stalks, towards the heart of the camp, going with infinite care, so as not to break down the fern into a path. I hoped to make no more stir among the fern-tops than would be made by one of the many pigs scattering about in the enclosure.

While I was crawling along in this way, I suddenly heard a curious noise from an intensely thick part of the fern in front of me. It was a clinking noise, followed by a sort of dry rasping, as though a very big person were gritting his teeth very hard. It stopped suddenly, but soon began again. I thought that it must be some one mending harness with a file, or perhaps some old sheep or cow, with the remnants of a bell about her neck, licking a stone for salt. As was in an adventure, I thought that I would see it out to the end; for I was enjoying my morning. In spite of the want of breakfast I felt very like a red Indian or a pirate, creeping through the jungle to the sack of a treasure train. So I wormed on towards the noise. As I came near to it, I went more cautiously, because in one of the pauses of the noise, I heard a muttered curse, which told me that the unseen noise-maker was a man. If I had been wise I should have stopped there; for I had learned all that I came out to learn. But I was excited now. I wished to see everything, before creeping away unseen to make my report. Perhaps I wished to see something which had nothing to do with the club men, a private main of cocks, say, or a dog, or bull-baiting, carried on with some of the squire's creatures, but without his knowledge. I had a half wish that I might have something of the kind to report; because in my heart I longed to say nothing to any of the Duke's party which might lead to the ruin of these poor people who were trying so hard to protect their property.

A few feet further on, I was wishing most heartily that I had never left my room in London. It was like this. In the very heart of the fern clump, where the ferns were tallest, a little spring bubbled out of the ground, at the rate, I suppose, of a pint of water in a minute. The ferns grew immensely thick there; but someone had thinned out a few of the roots from the ground, leaving the uprooted plant with the ferns still living, to form a rough kind of thatch above a piece of earth big enough for a man's body. In the scented shade of this thatch, with the side of his face turned towards me, a big, rough, bearded man sat, filing away some bright steel irons which were riveted on his ankles. He swore continually in a low whisper as he worked, not even pausing in his curses when he spat on to the hollow scraped in the irons by his file. He was the fiercest looking savage of a man I have ever seen. His face had a look of stern, gloomy cruelty which I shall never forget. His general appearance was terrible; for he had a face burnt almost black by the sun (some of it may have been mud) with a nasty white scar running irregularly all down his left cheek, along the throat to the shoulder. He was not what you might call naked, a naked man, such as I have seen since in the hot countries, would have looked a nobleman beside him. He wore a pair of dirty linen knickerbockers, all frayed into ribbons at the knees, a pair of strong hide slippers bound to his ankles by strips of leather, a part of a filthy red shirt without sleeves, a hat stolen from a scarecrow, nothing else whatever, except the mud of many days' gathering. His shirt was torn all down the back in a great slit which he had tried to secure by what the sailors call "Bristol buttons," i.e. pieces of string. The red flannel hung from him so as to show his back, all criss-crossed with flogging scars. I knew at once from the irons that he was a criminal escaped from gaol; but the criss-crossed scars taught me that he was a criminal of the most terrible kind, probably one who had shipped into the Navy to avoid hanging.

I took in a view of him before he saw me. His image was stamped on my brain in less than ten seconds. In the eleventh second, I was lying on my back in the gloom of the fern-growth, with this great ruffian on my chest, squeezing me by my windpipe. I cannot say that he spoke to me. It was not speech. It was the snarling wild beast gurgle which passes for speech in the slums of our great cities, as though all the filth of a low nature were choking in the throat at once. He was on me too quickly for me to cry out. I could only lie still, cackling for breath, while the fierce face glowered down on me. I understood him to say that he would have my windpipe out if I said a word. I suppose he saw that I was only a very frightened boy; for his clutch upon me relaxed, after a few awful, gasping moments. When he loosed his hold, his great hand pawed over my throat till he had me by the scruff of the neck. He drew me over towards the spring, as one would draw a puppy. Then, still crouching in the fern, he hurried me to a single stunted sloe-bush which grew there. "Go down, you," he said, giving me a shove towards the bush. "Down th' 'ole."

Just behind the sloe-bush, under a fringe of immense ferns, was an opening in the earth, about eighteen inches high, by two feet across. It was like a large rabbit or fox earth, except that the mouth of it was not worn bare. I did not like the thought of going down th' 'ole; but with this great griping fist on my nape there was not much sense in saying so. I wormed my way in, helped on by prods from the file. It was a melancholy moment when my head passed beyond the last filtering of light into the tomb's blackness, where not even insects lived. After a moment of scrambling I found that the passage was big enough for me to go on all fours. It was a dry passage, too, which seemed strange to me; but on reaching out with my hand I felt that the walls were lined with well laid stones, unmortared. The roof above me was also of stone. You may wonder why I did not shoot this ruffian with my pistol. You boys think that if you had a pistol you would shoot any one who threatened you. You would not. When the moment comes, it is not so easily disposed of. Besides, a filthy, cursing pirate on your throat checks your natural calm most strangely.

The passage led into the swell of the rampart for about twenty yards, where it opened into a dimly lighted chamber about four feet high. A little blink of light came through a rabbit hole, at the end of which I saw a spray of gorse with the sunlight on it. I could see by the dim light that the chamber was built of unmortared stones, very cleverly laid. The floor of it was greasier than the passage had been, but still it was not damp. On one side it had a bed of heather stalks, on the other there was something dark which felt like cold meat. The man came grunting in behind me, clinking his leg-irons. After groping about in a corner of the room he lighted a stinking rushlight by means of a tinder box.



CHAPTER XX. THE SQUIRE'S HOUSE

"There," he said, not unkindly, "there's a nice little 'ome for yer. Now you, tell me wot you were doing spying on me. First of all, 'ave you any money?" He did not wait for me to answer, but dug his hands into my pockets at once, taking every penny I had, except a few shillings which were hidden in my belt. He did not see my belt, as I had taken to wearing it next my skin, since I began to follow the wars. I feared from the greed which showed in all his movements that he vas going to strip me; but he did not do so, thinking, no doubt, that none of my clothes would fit his body.

"Well," he said, in his snarling beast voice, "wot's up 'ere, with all these folk brought their beasts 'ere?"

I told him that the Duke had come co fight for the crown of England, with the result, as I supposed, that the country people dared not trust their live-stock at home, for fear of having them pillaged. He seemed pleased at the news; but being an utter wild beast, far less civilized than the lowest savage ever known to me, he showed his pleasure by hoping that the rich (whom he cursed fluently) might have their heads pulled off in the war, while as for the poor (the farmers close by us) he hoped that they might lose every beast they owned. "Do 'era good," he said. "Now," he went on, "are you come spying 'ere along of the farmers?"

"No," I said, "I am a servant of the Duke's, riding out to look for the militia."

"Ah," he said. "Are yer, cocky? 'Ow'm I to know that?"

"Well," I said, "Look at my hands. Are they the hands of a farmer?"

"No," he said. "No, Mister stuck-up flunkey, they ain't. I s'pose yet proud of yet 'ands. I'll 'ave yer wait at table on me." He seemed to like the notion: for he repeated it many times, while he dug out hunks of cold ham with his file, from the meat which I had felt as I crawled in

"'Ow proud I dig A'unk a cold pig"

he sang, as he gulped the pieces down. It was partly a nightmare, partly very funny. I was not sure if he was mad, probably he was mad, but being down in the burrow there, in the half darkness, hearing that song, made me feel that I was mad; it was all a very terrible joke; perhaps madness affects people like that. At last I spoke to him again.

"Sir," I said, "I've been up since two this morning. Give me a hunk of cold pig, too. I'm half-starved."

"'Elp yourself, can't yer?" he snarled. "Oo'm I to wait on yer?" Then, very cunningly, he put in, "'Ave you got a knife on yer?"

"No," I said cautiously, "I've got no knife," which was a lie; I did not wish my knife to go the same way as the money. He gave me some cold pig, very excellent ham it was, too, for which I was very thankful. He watched my greediness with satisfaction. I ate heartily when I saw that my confident way with him had made him more tender towards me.

"Yes," he snorted. "Per'aps you ain't been lying to me after all. Now 'ow long will these blokes be up the 'ill 'ere?" I did not know that; but I supposed that they would go home directly the Duke's army had got as far, say, as Taunton. "But," I added, "the Duke may be beaten. If he's beaten, all this part will be full of troops beating every bush for the rebels." He swore at this; but his curses were only designed to hide his terror.

"Could a fellow get to sea," he said in a whining tone. "Could a poor fellow in trouble slip away to sea, now, at one of these seaport towns? Boy, I been livin' like a wild beast all the way from Bristol, this two months. I didn't kill the feller; not dead. The knife only went into 'im a very little way, not more'n a inch. I was raised near 'ere at a farm. So I knowed of this 'ere burrow. I got 'ere two days ago, pretty near dead. Now I been penned up from the sea by these farmers comin' 'ere, doin' swottin' sentry-go all round me. I tell yer, I'll cut up sour, if they pen me in, now I'm so near got away. I been with Avery. They call Avery a pirate. They said I was a pirate. It's 'anging if they ketch me. Do yer think I could get away to Lyme or some place, to get took into a ship?" I told him, no; because I knew from what Lord Grey had told me, that the Channel was full of men-of-war searching every ship which hove in sight; besides, he did not look to me to be a very promising hand for a captain to take aboard.

"All the same," he said, "I got to risk it. You say there may be troops coming?"

"As for that," I answered, "the troops may be here at any moment from Exeter or Honiton. They've arrested hundreds of people everywhere around. You'd better stay in the burrow here." He did not pay much attention to what I said. He cursed violently, as though he were a bag-pipe full of foul words being slowly squeezed by some player. At last he crawled to the passage, foaming out incoherently that he would show them, he would, let them just wait.

"You stay 'ere," he said. "If I find you follerin' me, I'll mash your 'ed into that much slobber." He showed me a short piece of rope which he had twisted, sailor fashion, so as to form a handle for a jagged piece of flint, which, as I could see, had been used on some one or something quite recently.

"Mogador Jack," he said, "'e don't like people follerin' 'im." With that he left me alone in the burrow, wondering, now that it was over, why he had not killed me. He left me quite stunned; his sudden coming into my life had been so strange. It was unreal, like a dream, to have been in an ancient Briton's burial-chamber with a mad old pirate who had committed murder. But now that he had gone, I was eager to go, too, if it could be managed. I would not stay there till the brute came back, in spite of that flint club. After waiting some little time, during which, I felt sure, he was waiting for me at the door of the burrow, I took out my pistol. I examined the charge to see that all was well; then very cautiously, I began to crawl up the passage, with my pistol in my hand.

I waited for some minutes near the door, trying to convince myself by the lie of the shadows outside that he was crouched there, ready for me. But it seemed safe. I could see no shadow at all except the tremulous fern-shadows. At last I took off my coat as a blind. I flung it through the doorway, with some force, to see if it would draw him from his hiding. Nothing happened. The ruffian did not pounce upon it. I took a few long breaths to hearten me; it was now or never. I shut my eyes, praying that the first two blows might miss my head, so that I should have time to fire. Then, on my back, with my pistol raised over my head, I forced myself out with every muscle in my body. I leaped to my feet on the instant, quickly glancing round for the madman, swinging my pistol about with my finger hard on the trigger. He was not there, after all. I might have spared myself the trouble. I was alone there in the fern, within earshot of a murmur of voices, talking excitedly. I was not going to spy into any more secrets. I was going to get out of that camp cost what it might. I made one rush through the fern in the direction of the rampart, shoving the stalks aside, as a bull knocks through jungle in Campeachy. In thirty steps I was clear of the fern, charging slap into a group of people who were giving brandy to the sentry, whom I had passed but a little while before. He was bleeding from a broken wound on his pretty hard Saxon skull. He was not badly hurt, for he was swearing lustily; but he had been stunned just long enough for my pirate man to strip him. He was dressed now in a pair of leather gaiters, all the rest of his things had been taken, the pistol with them, I saw all this at a glance, as I charged in among them. I took it all in, guessing in one swift gleam of comprehension, exactly what had happened there, as my pirate made his rush for freedom. There was no time to ask if my guess were right or not.

"Out of my way," I shouted, shoving my pistol towards the nearest of the group. "Out of my way, or I shall fire." They made way for me. I charged down hill by the way I had come. Some one cried "Stop en." Another shouted "Shoot en, maister." There came a great bang of a gun over my head. But I was going down hill like a rabbit, into the gorse, into the bracken, into the close cover of the heath. Glancing back, I saw a dozen excited people rushing down the rampart after me. Some flung stones; some ran to catch horses to chase me. But I had the start of them. I was down the hill, over the hedge, in the lane, in no time. There, a hundred yards away, I saw my friends the troopers leading my cob. I shouted to them. They heard me. They came up to me at a gallop. In ten seconds more we were sailing away together.

"You been getting into scrapes, master," said one of the troopers. "You doan't want to meddle with the folk in these parts."

"No," said the other, with a touch of insolence in his voice. "So your master may find, one of these fine days." Being mindful of the Duke's honour, I told the man to mind his own business, which he said he meant to do, without asking my opinion. After that we rode on together a little heated, till we were out of sight of the combe, where I had had such a startling adventure.

After another hour of riding, we pulled up at the garden gate of an old grey handsome house which stood at some distance from the road. I asked one of the troopers who lived in this house. He said that it was an old Abbey, which belonged to Squire; but that we were to leave word there of the Duke's movements, "for Squire be very 'tached to the Protestants; besides he'll give us a breakfast. Sure to." We left our horses at the gate while we walked up to the house. A pretty girl, who seemed to know one of the men, told us to come in, while she got breakfast for us. "Squire," she said, "would be glad to hear what was going on; for he was that given up to the soldiers we couldn't hardly believe." We were shown down a long flagged corridor to a little cool room which looked as though it had once been the abbot's cell. It had a window in it, looking out upon a garden in full flower, a little rose garden, covered with those lovely bushes of old English red single roses, the most beautiful flower in the world. The window was large, but the space of it was broken up by stone piers, so that no pane of glass was more than six inches wide. I mention this now, because of what happened later. There was not much furniture in the room; but what there was was very good. There was an old Dutch pewter jug, full of sweet-williams, on the table. On the wall' there was a picture of a Spanish gentleman on a cream-coloured, fat handsome little horse. Together they looked very like Don Quixote out for a ride with his squire. The two troopers left me in this room, while they went off to the kitchen. Presently the servant came in again, bringing me a noble dish of breakfast, a pigeon pie, a ham, a jar of preserved quince, a honeycomb, a great household loaf, newly baked, a big quart jug full of small beer. I made a very honest meal. After eating, I examined the room. There was tapestry over one part of the wall. It concealed a little low door which led to what had once been the abbot's fishpond, now a roofed-in bath-house, where one could plunge into eight feet or so of (bitterly cold) spring water. This bath-house was some steps lower than the little dining room. It was lighted by a skylight directly over the bath. It had no other window whatever. After examining the bath, wishing that I had known of it before eating, I went back to the dining room, where the servant was clearing away the food.

"I hope you enjoyed your breakfast, sir," she said.

"Yes, thank you, very much indeed," I answered.

"Squire will be down d'reckly, sir," she said. "If you will please to make yourself at home." I made myself at home, as she desired, while she, after a few minutes, took away the soiled plates, leaving all the other things on the side-board, ready for dinner. I noticed that she smiled in a rather strange way as she drew to the door behind her.

I loitered away about half an hour, waiting for the squire to come. As he did not come, I turned over the books on the shelves, mostly volumes of plays, the Spanish Tragedy, the Laws of Candy, Love Lies a Bleeding, etc., four plays to a volume in buckram covers. I was just getting tired of All for Love, when I heard a footstep in the passage outside. I thought that I would ask the passenger, whoever it might be, for how much longer the squire would keep me waiting. I was anxious about getting back to the army. It was dangerous to straggle too far from the Duke's camps when unbeaten armies followed on both his wings. So I went to the door to learn my fate at once. To my great surprise I found that I could not open it. It was locked on the outside. The great heavy iron lock had been turned upon me. I was a prisoner in the room there. Thinking that it had been done carelessly, I beat upon the door to attract the man who passed down the passage, calling to him to turn the key for me so that I might get out. The footsteps did not pause. They passed on, down the corridor, as though the man were deaf. After that a fury came upon me. I beat upon the door for five minutes on end, till the house must have rung with the clatter; but no one paid any attention to me, only, far away, I heard a woman giggling, in an interval when I had paused for breath. The door was a heavy, thick oak door, bound with iron. The lock was a bar of steel at least two inches thick; there was no chance of getting it open. Even firing into the lock with my little pistol would not have helped me; it would only have jammed the tongue of steel in its bed. I soon saw the folly of trying to get out by the door; so I turned to the window, which was more difficult still, or, if not more difficult, more tantalizing, since it showed me the free garden into which one little jump would suffice to carry me. But the closely placed piers of stone made it impossible for me to get through the window. It was no use trying to do so. I should only have stuck fast, midway. I began at once to pick out the mortar of the pier stones with my knife point. It was hopeless work, though, for the old monks had used some cement a good deal harder than the stones which it bound together. I could only dig away a little dust from its surface. That way also was barred to me. Then I went down to the bathing-chamber, hoping that there would be some way of escape for me there. I hoped that the escape pipe of the bath might be a great stone conduit leading to a fish-pond in the garden. It was nothing of the sort. It was a little miserable leaden pipe. I beat all round the walls, praying for some secret door, but there was nothing of any use to me, only a little iron ventilator high up, big enough to take my head, but nothing more. As for the skylight over the bath, it was beyond my reach, high up. For the moment I could see no means of getting to it. I went back to the dining room to give another useless pounding to the door. My head was full of miserable forebodings; but as yet I suspected merely that I had been caught by some sudden advance of militia. Or perhaps the squire had laid plans to get information from one who knew the Duke. Perhaps I had been lured away specially by one hungry for the King's good opinion. Or could it be Aurelia? Whatever it was, I was trapped, that was the terrible thing. I was shut up there till my enemy, whoever it was, chose to deal with me. I was in arms against the ruling King of England; everybody's hand would be against me, unless my own hands helped me before my enemies came. My first thought was to get the table down the steps, to make a bridge across the bath, from which I could reach the skylight. This I could not do at first; for being much flustered, I did not put the table-leaves down. Until I knocked them down in my hurry they kept me from dragging the table from the dining room. When I got it at last into the bath-room, I found that it would not stretch across the water: the legs were too close together, as I might have seen had I kept my wits about me. I could think of no other way of getting out.

I went back disheartened to the dining room, dragging my coat behind me. The first thing which I saw was a letter addressed to me in a hand already known to me. The letter lay on the floor on the space once covered by the table. As it had not been there when I dragged the table downstairs, someone must have entered the room while I was away. I opened the letter in a good deal of flurry. It ran as follows:

"Dear Martin Hyde:—As you will not take a sincere friend's advice, you have to make the best of a sincere adviser's friendship. You did me a great service. Let me do you one. I hope to keep you an amused prisoner until your captain is a beaten man. By about three weeks from this 26th of June we shall hope to have made you so much our friend that you will not think of leaving us. May I make a compact with you? Please do not shoot me with that pistol of yours when I bring you some supper tonight. That is one part of it. The other is this. Let us be friends. We know all about you. I have even talked to Ephraim about you. So let us make it up. We have been two little spit fires. At any rate you have. Let us be friends. What sorts of books do you like to read? I shall bring you some story-books about ghosts, or about red Indians. Which do you like best? I like red Indians myself. I suppose you, being a man, like ghosts best. Your sincere friend Aurelia Carew. Who by the by thinks it best to warn you that you had not better try to get up the chimney, as it is barred across. She hopes that the table did not fall into the bath."



CHAPTER XXI. MY FRIEND AURELIA AND HER UNCLE

It was a friendly letter, which relieved me a good deal from my anxieties; but what I could not bear was the thought that the Duke would think me a deserter. I made up my mind that I would get away from that house at the first opportunity, so as to rejoin the Duke, to whom I felt myself pledged. But in the meantime, until I could get away, I resolved to make the best of my imprisonment. I was nettled by Aurelia's tone of superiority. I would show her, as I had shown her before, that my wits were just as nimble as hers. A few minutes after the letter had been read, she held a parley with me through the keyhole.

"Mr. Martin Hyde. Are you going to shoot me?"

"No, Miss Carew, though I think you deserve it."

"You won't try to get away if I open the door?"

"I mean to get away as soon as ever I get half a chance."

"I've got three men with me at the door here."

"Oh. Very well. But you just wait till I get a chance."

"Don't be so bloodthirsty, Mr. Martin Hyde. Now, I'm coming in to talk with you. No pistols, mind. Not one."

"I've promised I won't shoot. You might believe a fellow. But I mean to get away, remember. Just to show you."

She opened the door after that, a brown, merry Aurelia, behind whom I could see three men, ready to stop any rush. They closed the door behind her after she had entered.

"Well," she said, smiling. "Will you not shake hands with me, Martin Hyde?"

"Yes," I said, "I will shake hands. But you played a very mean trick, I think. There."

"You mustn't think me mean," she answered. "I don't like mean people. Now promise me one thing. You say you are going to run away from us. You won't run away from me when I am with you, will you?"

"No," I said, after thinking this over, to see if it could be twisted into any sort of trap, likely to stop my escape. "I will not. Not while I am with you."

"That's right," she said. "We can go out together, then. Now you've promised, suppose we go out into the garden."

We went into the garden together, talking of every subject under the sun but the subject nearest to our hearts at the moment. I would not speak of her capture of me; she would not speak of the Duke's march towards Taunton. There was some constraint whenever we came near those subjects. She was a very merry, charming companion; but the effect of her talk that morning was to make me angry at being trapped by her. I looked over the countryside for guiding points in case I should be able to get away. Axminster lay to the southeast, distant about six miles; so much I could reckon from the course of our morning's ride. I could not see Axminster for I was shut from it by rolling combes, pretty high, which made a narrow valley for the river. To the west the combes were very high, strung along towards Taunton in heaps. Due east, as I suspected, quite near to us, was Chard, where by this time the Duke must have been taking up his position. Taunton I judged (from a mile-stone which we had passed) to be not much more than a dozen miles from where I was. I have always had a pretty keen sense of position. I do not get lost. Even in the lonely parts of the world I have never been lost. I can figure out the way home by a sort of instinct helped by a glimpse at the sun. When I go over a hill I have a sort of picture-memory of what lies behind, to help me home again, however tortuous my path is on the other side. So the few glimpses which I could get of the surrounding country were real helps to me. I made more use of them than Aurelia suspected.

We were much together that day. Certainly she did her best to make my imprisonment happy. In the evening she was kinder; we were more at ease together; I was able to speak freely to her.

"Aurelia," I said, "you risked your life twice to warn me."

"That's not quite true, Martin," she said. "I am a government spy, trusted with many people's lives. I had other work to do than to warn a naughty boy who wanted to see what the ghosts were." I was startled at her knowing so much about me; she laughed.

"Well," she said, "I like you for it. I should have wanted to see them myself. But the ghost-makers are scattered far enough now."

"All the same, Aurelia," I said, "I thank you for what you did for me. I wish I could do something in return." She laughed.

"Well," she said, "you were very kind in the ship. You were a good enemy to me then. Weren't you?"

"Yes," I said, "I beat you properly on the ship. I carried the Duke's letters in my pistol cartridges, where you never suspected them. The letters which were in the satchel I forged myself after I got on board. If you'd not been a silly you'd have seen that they were forged."

"So that was why," she said. "Those letters gave everybody more anxious work than you've any notion of. Oh, Martin, though, I helped to drug you to get those letters. It was terrible. Terrible. Will you ever forgive me?"

"Why, yes, Aurelia," I said. "After all, it was done for your King. Just as I mean to run away from here to serve mine. All is fair in the King's service. Let us shake hands on that." We shook hands heartily, looking into each other's eyes.

"By the way," I said, "where did you get to that day in Holland, when I got the letters from you?"

"Ah," she answered, "you made me like a wildcat that day. I nearly killed you, twice. You remember that low parapet on the roof? I was behind that, waiting for you with a loaded pistol. You were all very near your deaths that morning. In the King's service, of course. For just a minute, I thought that you would climb up to examine that parapet. What a crazy lot you all were not to know at once that I was there! Where else could I have been?"

"Well," I answered, "I beat you in the ride, didn't I? You thought yourself awfully clever about that horse at the inn. Well, I beat you there. I beat you in the race. I beat you with my letters to the Dutchman. I beat you over those forgeries."

"Yes, indeed," she said. "I can beat all the men in your Duke's service. Every one. Even clever Colonel Lane. Even Fletcher of Saltoun. But a boy is so unexpected, there's no beating a boy, except with a good birch rod. You beat me so often, Martin, that I think you can afford to forgive me for tricking you once in bringing you here."

"I shall beat you in that, too, Miss Carew," I said; "for I mean to get away from you as soon as I can."

"So you say," she said. "But we have club men walking all round this house all night, as well as sentries by day, guarding the stock. Your gang of marauders will find a rough welcome if they come for refreshments here."

Even as she spoke, there came a sudden crash of fire-arms from the meadows outside the garden. About a dozen men came hurrying out of the house with weapons in their hands, among them a big, fierce-looking handsome man, who drew his sword as he ran.

"That is my uncle, Travers Carew," said Aurelia. "He owns this property. He wants to meet you." There came another splutter of fire-arms from the meadows. "Come," she said. "We'll see what it is. It is the Duke's men come pillaging."

We ran through a gate in the wall into an apple-orchard, where the Carew men were already dodging among the trees towards the enemy. There was a good deal of shouting, but the tide of battle, as they call it, the noise of shots, the trampling of horses, had already set away to the left, where the enemy were retreating, with news, as I heard later, that the militia held the Abbey in force. The Carew men came back in a few minutes with a prisoner. He had been captured while holding the horses of two friends, who had dismounted to drive off some of the Carew cattle. He said that the attack had been made by a party of twenty of the Duke's horse, sent out to bring in food for the march. They had scattered at the first discharge of fire-arms, which had frightened them horribly, for they had not expected any opposition. The frightened men never drew rein till they galloped their exhausted horses into Chard camp, where they gave another touch of dejection to the melancholy Duke. As for the prisoner, he was sent off under guard to Honiton gaol; I don't know what became of him. He was one of more than three thousand who came to death or misery in that war. They said that he was a young farmer, in a small way, from somewhere out beyond Chideock. The war had been a kind of high-spirited frolic for him; he had entered into it thoughtlessly, in the belief that it would be a sort of pleasant ride to London, with his expenses paid. Now he was ended. When he rode out with bound hands from the Carew house that evening, between two armed riders, he rode out of life. He never saw Chideock again, except in the grey light of dawn, after a long ride upon a hurdle, going to be hanged outside his home. Or perhaps he was bundled into one of the terrible convict ships bound for Barbadoes, with other rebels, to die of small-pox on the way, or under the whip in the plantations.

After this little brush, with its pitiful accompaniment, which filled me full of a blind anger against the royal party, so much stronger, yet with so much less right than ours, I was taken in to see Sir Travers Carew. He had just sent off the prisoner to Honkon, much as he would have brushed a fly from his hand. He had that satisfaction with himself, that feeling of having supported the right, which comes to all those who do cruel things in the name of that code of unjust cruelty, the criminal law. He looked at me with rather a grim smile, which made me squirm.

"So," he said, "this is the young rebel, is it? Do you know that I could send you off to Honiton gaol with that poor fellow there?" This made my heart die; but something prompted me to put a good face on it.

"Sir," I said, "I have done what my father thought right. I don't wish to be treated better than any other prisoner. Send me to Honiton, sir."

"No," he said, looking at me kindly. "I shall not send you to Honiton. You are not in arms against the King's peace, nor did you come over from Holland with the Duke. I can't send you to Honiton. Besides, I knew your father, Martin. I was at college with him. He was a good friend of mine, poor fellow. No, sir, I shall keep you here till the Duke's crazy attempt is knocked on the head. I think I can find something better for you to do than that fussy old maid, your uncle, could. But, remember, sir. You have a reputation for being a slippery young eel. I shall take particular pains to keep you from slipping out of my hands. But I do not wish to use force to your father's son. Will you give me your word not to try to escape?"

"No," I answered, sullenly. "I won't. I mean to get away directly I can."

"Come," he said kindly, "we tricked you rather nastily. But do you suppose, Martin, that your father, if he were here, would encourage your present resolutions? The Duke is coming (nearly unprepared) to bring a lot of silly yokels into collision with fully trained soldiers ten times more numerous. If the countryside, the gentry, the educated, intelligent men, were ready for the Duke, or believed in his cause, they would join him. They do not join him. His only adherents are the idle, ignorant, ill-conditioned rogues of this county, who will neither fight nor obey, when it comes to the pinch. I do not love the present King, Martin, but he is a better man than this Duke. The Duke will never make a king. He may be very fit for court-life; but there is not an ounce of king in him. If the Duke succeeds, in a year or two he will show himself so foolish that we shall have to send for the Prince of Orange, who is a man of real, strong wisdom. We count on that same prince to deliver us from James, when the time is ripe. It is not ripe, yet. I am telling you bitter, stern truth, Martin. Now then. Let me have your promise not to continue in the service of this doomed princeling, your master. Eh? What shall it be?"

"No," I said, "that's desertion."

"Not at all," he answered. "It is a custom of war. Come now. As a prisoner of war, give me your parole."

"You said just now that I was not a prisoner of war," I answered.

"Very well, then," he said. "I am a magistrate. I commit you add suspected person. Hart! Hart!" (Here he called in a man-servant.) "Just see that this young sprig keeps out of mischief. Think it over, Mr. Martin. Think it over."

In a couple of minutes I was back in my prison cells, locked in for the night, with neither lamp nor candle. A cot had been made up for me in a corner of the room. Supper was laid for me on the table, which had been brought back to its place. There was nothing for it but to grope to bed in the twilight, wondering how soon I could get away to what I still believed to be a righteous cause in which my father wished me to fight. I slept soundly after my day of adventure. I dreamed that I rode into London behind the Duke, amid all the glory of victory, with the people flinging flowers at us. But dreams go by contraries, the wise women say.

I was a full fortnight, or a little more, a prisoner in that house. They treated me very kindly. Aurelia was like an elder sister. Old Sir Travers used to jest at my being a rebel. But I was a prisoner, shut in, watched, kept close. The kindness jarred upon me. It was treating me like a child, when I was no longer a child. I had for some wild weeks been doing things which few men have the chance of doing. Perhaps, if I had confided all that I felt to Aurelia, she would have cleared away my troubles, made me see that the Duke's cause was wrong, that my father would wish his son well out of civil broils, however just, that I had better give the promise that they asked from me. But I never confided really fully in her. I moped a good deal, much worried in my mind. I began to get a lot of unworthy fancies into my head, silly fancies, which an honest talk would have scattered at once. I began to think from their silence about the Duke's doings that his affairs were prospering, that he was conquering, or had conquered, that I was being held by this loyalist family as a hostage. It was silly of me; but although in many ways I was a skilled man of affairs, I had only the brain of a child, I could not see the absurdity of what I came to believe. It worried me so much that at the end of my imprisonment I became very feverish; really ill from anxiety, as prisoners often are. I refused food for the latter part of one day, hoping to frighten my captors. They did not notice it, so I had my pains for nothing.

I went to bed very early; but I could not sleep. I fidgeted about till I was unusually wakeful. Then I got out of bed to try if there was a way of escape by the old-fashioned chimney, barred across as it was, at intervals, by strong old iron bars. I had never thought the chimney possible, having examined it before, when I first came to that house; but my fever made me think all things possible; so up I got, hoping that I should have light enough to work by.



CHAPTER XXII. THE PRIEST'S HOLE

It was too dark to do much that night, but I spent an hour in picking mortar from the bricks into which the lowest iron bar had been let. After a brief sleep I woke in the first of the light (at about one o'clock) ready to go at it again. My fever was hot upon me. I don't think that I was quite sane that day; but all my reason seemed to burn up into one bright point, escape, escape at all costs, then, at the instant. I must tell you that the chimney, like most old chimneys, was big enough for a big boy to scramble up, in order to sweep it. For some reason, the owners of the house had barred the chimney across so that this could not be done. They swept it, probably, in the effective old-fashioned way by shooting a blank charge of powder from a blunderbuss straight up the opening. The first two iron bars were so placed that it was only necessary to remove one to make room for my body. Further up there were others, more close together. The fire had not been lighted for many years; there was no soot in the passage. There was a jackdaw's nest high up. I could see the old jackdaw looking down at me. Up above her head was a little square of sky. I did not doubt that when I got to the top I should be able to scramble out of that square on to the leads, then down by a water-spout, evading the sentries, over the garden wall to freedom. After half an hour of mortar picking I got one end of the lowest iron bar out of its socket. Then I picked out the mortar from the other end, working the bar about like a lever, to grind the fulcrum into dust. Soon I had the bar so loose that I was able to thrust it to one side, leaving a passage big enough for my body.

I was very happy when this was done. I went back to the room to make up a packet of food to take with me. This I thrust into an inner pocket, before launching out up the hole. When I had cleaned up the mess of mortar, I started up the chimney, carefully replacing the bar behind me. Soon I was seven or eight feet above the room, trying to get at the upper bars. I was scrambling about for a foothold, when I noticed, to my left, an iron bar or handle, well concealed from below by projecting bricks. I seized hold of it with my left hand, very glad of the support it offered, when, with a dull grating noise, it slid downwards under my weight, drawing with it the iron panel to which it was clamped. I had come upon a secret chamber in the chimney; there at my side was an opening big enough for a man's body. I was pretty well startled by it, not only by the suddenness of the discovery, but from the fear I had lest it should lead to some inhabited room, where my journey would be brought to an end. I peered into it well, before I ventured to enter. It was a little low room, about five feet square, lit by two loopholes, which were concealed from outside by the great growth of ivy on the side of the house. I clambered into it with pleasure, keeping as quiet as I could. It was a dirty little room, with part of its floor rotten from rain which had beaten in through the loopholes. It had not been used for a great while. The pallet bed against the wall was covered with rotten rags, dry as tinder. There were traces of food, who could say how ancient, in a dish by the bed. There was a little crucifix, with a broken neck-chain, lying close to the platter. Some priest who had used this priest-hole years before had left it there in his hurry; I wondered how. Something of the awe which had been upon him then seemed to linger in the place. Many men had lain with beating hearts in that room; the room seemed to remember. I have never been in a place which made one's heart move like that room. Well. The priest's fears were dead as the priest by this time. Nothing but the wreck of his dinner, perhaps the last he ever ate, remained to tell of him, beside the broken symbol of his belief. I shut-to the little panel-door by which I had entered, so that I might not have the horrible fancy that the old priest's shaven head was peering up the chimney at me, to see what I was doing in his old room, long since given over to the birds.